At Freedomcare, we understand that being a CDPAP caregiver can be a rewarding and amazing experience, but there are also days when it can be difficult to keep going. Discouragement and frustration is common. While it can be empowering to take on the responsibility of caring for another person, it’s also a totally normal response to sometimes feel caregiver burnout and to not want to continue. As a caregiver, there are both highs and lows, and even caregivers need to be able to take care of themselves and reach out for support!
One of the most important skills that you’ll learn as a caregiver is the ability to care for yourself even while offering so much to another person. This isn’t always the simplest, most straightforward task, and any experienced caregiver will tell you that self care is an ongoing assignment that you must make into a top priority. Reaching out to other caregivers for stories and support is extremely valuable, but developing techniques for bringing yourself up even during the darkest of moments is also essential.
The inspirational quotes listed below will give you a beacon of light in the darkness and can guide you back toward your balanced center. Then you can continue to provide the best care possible for loved ones while still giving yourself the attention you deserve!
1. “Kindness can transform someone’s dark moment with a blaze of light. You’ll never know how much your caring matters. Make a difference for another today.” — Amy Lee Mercree
2. “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” — Dalai Lama
3. “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the things which you think you cannot do.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
4. “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” — Leo Buscaglia
5. “Caregivers attract caregivers and live in a community of love. They are energized by their caring, fulfilled, and they love life.” — Gary Zukav
6. “And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world it is best to hold hands and stick together.” — Robert Fulgham
7. “Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people because you no longer regard people as a drain of energy.” — Chogyam Trungpa
8. “Caring for our seniors is perhaps the greatest responsibility we have. Those who walked before us have given us so much and made possible the life we all enjoy.” — Senator John Hoeven
9. “When we truly care for ourselves, it becomes possible to care far more profoundly about other people. The more alert and sensitive we are to our own needs, the more loving and generous we can be toward others” — Eda LeShan
10. “Sometimes our work as caregivers is not for the faint of heart. But, you will never know what you’re made of until you step into the fire. Step bravely.” — Deborah A. Beasley
11. “You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.” — Khalil Gibran
12. “Offering care means being a companion, not a superior. It doesn’t matter whether the person we are caring for is experiencing cancer, the flu, dementia, or grief. If you are a doctor or surgeon, your expertise and knowledge comes from a superior position. But when our role is to be providers of care, we should be there as equals.” — Judy Cornish
13. “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” — Lao Tzu
14. “My caregiver mantra is to remember: the only control you have is over the changes you choose to make.” — Nancy L. Kriseman
15. “During the 24/7 grind of being a caregiver, it’s all too easy to forget the fact that the person you’re doing so much for it, and is obligated to be, more resourceful than you in many respects.” — Naoki Higashida
16. “When you’re a caregiver, you need to realize that you’ve got to take care of yourself, because, not only are you going to have to rise to the occasion and help someone else, but you have to model for the next generation.” — Naomi Judd
17. “Affirmations are our mental vitamins, providing the supplementary positive thoughts we need to balance the barrage of negative events and thoughts we experience daily.” — Tia Walker
18. “Put one foot in front of the other, no matter what. Enjoy the hilltop views, have courage in the valleys, pay attention to the bends in the road, cry when you have to, laugh when you can, be helpful to others, share your joys as well as your sorrows, and remember that God created you for a purpose.” — Eleanor Brownn
19. “In life, you can never be too kind or too fair; everyone you meet is carrying a heavy load. When you go through your day expressing kindness and courtesy to all you meet, you leave behind a feeling of warmth and good cheer, and you help alleviate the burdens everyone is struggling with.” — Brian Tracy
20. “Many of us follow the commandment ‘Love One Another.’ When it relates to caregiving, we must love one another with boundaries. We must acknowledge that we are included in the ‘Love One Another’.” — Peggy Speers
21. “Of all the lessons I’ve learned through my years of caregiving, the most important is to keep the love connection going. Just tell them that you love them again and again and again. You will never say it too much, ever.” — Joan Lunden
22. “Although the days are busy and the workload is always growing, there are still those special moments when someone says or does something and you know you’ve made a difference in someone’s life.” — Diane McKenty
23. “Love seeks only one thing: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is its own reward.” — Thomas Merton
24. “Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” — Bernice Johnson Reagon
25. “A smile is the light in your window that tells others that there is a caring, sharing person inside.” — Denis Waitley
26. “Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.” — Francesca Riegler
27. “Good humor is a tonic for mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression. It is a business asset. It attracts and keeps friends. It lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment.” — Grenville Kleiser
28. “Caregiving has no second agendas or hidden motives. The care is given from love for the joy of giving without expectation, no strings attached.” — Gary Zukav
29. “Caregiving leaves its mark on us. No matter what we do to prepare ourselves the hole left behind looms large.” — Dale L. Baker
30. “Perspective is an incredibly powerful tool. It tempers how we receive information, and guides what we choose to do with it.” — T. A. Sorensen
31. “This is something caregivers have to understand: you have to ask for help. You have to realize that you deserve to ask for help. Because you need to keep working on your own life.” — Gail Sheehy
32. “Caregiving is a constant learning experience. Most of us are untrained and learning as we go. Remain positive and stay on your path.” — Vivian Frazier
33. “Happiness is not so much in having as in sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” — Norman MacEwen
34. “A difficult time can be more readily endured if we retain the conviction that our existence holds a purpose, a cause to pursue, a person to love, a goal to achieve.” — John Maxwell
35. “Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.” — Kurt Vonnegut
36. “Sometimes it helps to know that I can’t do it all. One step at a time is all that’s possible, even when those steps are taken on the run.” — Anne W. Schaef
37. “You gotta look for the good in the bad, the happy in your sad, the gain in your pain, and what makes you grateful not hateful.” — Karen Salmonsohn
38. “When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better.” — Pauline R. Keezer
39. “Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.” — William James
40. “There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.” — Willa Cather
41. “While we may not be able to control all that happens to us, we can control what happens inside us.” — Benjamin Franklin
42. “It is not how much you do, but how much love you put into the doing.” — Mother Teresa
43. “So many tangles in life are ultimately hopeless that we have no appropriate sword other than laughter.” — Gordon W. Allport
44. “Care is a state in which something does matter; it is the source of human tenderness.” — Rollo May
45. “Caring about others, running the risk of feeling, and leaving an impact on people, brings happiness.” — Harold Kushner
46. “Be determined to handle any challenge in a way that will make you grow” — Les Brown
47. “There are only four kinds of people in the world. Those who have been caregivers. Those who are currently caregivers. Those who will be caregivers, and those who will need a caregiver.” — Rosalyn Carter
48. “Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For indeed, that’s all who ever have.” — Margaret Mead
49. “Doctors diagnose, nurses heal, and caregivers make sense of it all.” — Brett H. Lewis
50. “You have two hands. One to help yourself, and one to help others.” — Audrey Hepburn
51. “They may forget what you said, but they will not forget how you made them feel.” — Carl W. Buechner
52. “You can stress about things out of your control, or you can turn them over to God. When you release things because there is nothing you can do, you turn them over to someone who has a bigger plan and a bigger control than you.” — Amy Amundson
53. “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” — Aesop
54. “If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another. If you wish to know that you are safe, cause another to know that they are safe. If you wish to better understand seemingly incomprehensible things, help another to better understand. If you wish to heal your own sadness or anger, seek to heal the sadness or anger of another.” — Dalai Lama
55. “Gratitude doesn’t change the scenery. It merely washes clean the glass you look through so you can clearly see the colors.” — Richelle E. Goodrich
56. “All of us, at certain moments in our lives, need to take advice and receive help from other people.” — Alexis Carrel
57. “To be successful is to be helpful, caring, and constructive, to make everything and everyone you touch a little bit better.” — Norman Vincent Peale
58. “The happiest people are those who do the most for others. The most miserable are those who do the least.” — Booker T. Washington
59. “We can all make a difference in the lives of others in need, because it is the most simple of gestures that make the most significant of differences.” — Miya Yamanouchi
60. “If you’re someone people count on, particularly in the difficult moments, that’s the sign of a life lived honorably.” — Rachel Maddow
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